This invention relates to a catheter assembly and, more particularly, to a unique hub and catheter securement insert structure that greatly facilitates the fabrication of the catheter assembly and provides flexibility in the use of a single hub element.
Catheter assemblies utilizing a relatively long flexible hollow plastic catheter for insertion into the vein of a patient have long been utilized for the infusion of intravenous fluids and other medication. A catheter assembly of the type contemplated by the subject invention is illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,094,122. This patent very clearly describes the structure of one type of catheter to which this invention relates and thoroughly describes and illustrates the utilization of such a catheter. Another infusion catheter assembly is illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,802,433. This patent discloses that a flexible plastic catheter may be secured to the internal bore of a catheter hub by inserting a metal sleeve internally of the proximal end of the catheter to expand that end against the internal surface of the catheter hub. Many such approaches for the attachment of a plastic catheter to a plastic or metal hub have been previously suggested. However, all prior approaches for solving this problem have been very limited in nature in that each catheter hub configuration has been intended to accommodate only a single gauge catheter.
This has been particularly troublesome when the catheter assembly was fabricated with a metal hub. Because the catheter was usually attached to the metal hub in the manner illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,094,122, a separate hub structure was required for each catheter gauge. Obviously, this necessitated the stocking of a large number of metal hubs and, thus, created unwieldy raw material inventory problems. In addition, the cost of procuring hubs in a plurality of sizes was excessive.
Therefore, it has been desirable for many years to provide a catheter assembly in which the main component of the hub could be standardized at a single size and yet could be utilized with a variety of catheter gauges.